Comic Downloading Survey Results
Introduction:
From Tuesday, November 30th, 2004 to Tuesday December 14th, 2004 I took a survey about comic book downloading and scanning. This is to my knowledge the first survey into this field of interest.
I spread the news about this survey through various popular message boards. Among them: Talk @ Newsarama, Comicon.com message boards, Comics Journal Message Board, Brian K Vaughan forum, Joe Szilagyi Delphi Forum, Andy Diggle Delphi Forum, Superlime Delphi Forum, Joe Quesada Forum, Dwayne McDuffie Delphi Forum, Micah Wright Delphi Forum, Larry Young Delphi Forum and Isotope Delphi Forum. The mods at the Mark Millar Forum deleted my message about the survey.
I also went to the source of some of the downloading and scanning. I posted a link to the survey on a very popular bittorrent site that specializes in comic books (they wish to remain anonymous). As well, I visited some IRC channels frequented by people that regularly download through a variety of methods (mainly Newsgroups, but also IRC and DC++), and from there the word spread. I did not join DC++ hubs and advertise as virtually all of them have no advertising rules. The same goes for specific IRC channels that distribute scanned comics. Nonetheless, I got about 118 people involved in downloading or scanning to take the survey.
The purpose of the survey is to shed some light on the effects of scanning and downloading comics. I did not do it to justify or condemn those involved. Simply put, scanning and downloading has been going on for quite some time. When the subject of this gets brought up there are a variety of responses. Some people think it has very little effect on the comic industry, some fear a music industry like crash. While this survey is unscientific and doesn't provide concrete answers, it does provide some insight to popular methods of distribution, what comics are being distributed by popularity, changing buying habits of those involved and more.
On to the results:
Total Responses: | Downloaders: 81 (71%) | Scanners: 37 (29%) | Total: 118 |
1. How do you get your Comic Book Scans? (users picked more than one) |
Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Bittorrent | 68 (65%) | 13 (23%) | 81 (50%) |
B) DC++ | 14 (13%) | 7 (12%) | 21 (13%) |
C) Peer to Peer programs (Kazaa, etc..) | 5 (5%) | 5 (9%) | 10 (6%) |
D) Usenet Newsgroups | 4 (4%) | 14 (25%) | 18 (11%) |
E) IRC | 7 (7%) | 14 (25%) | 21 (13%) |
F) Legal Promotional versions on Websites (Marvel.com, etc..) |
6 (6%) | 4 (7%) | 10 (6%) |
Total | 104 | 57 | 161 |
This was originally two questions, the 2nd being "Which method do you get the majority of them from?" Some people answered one and not the other so I combined the answers to give a better picture of which method is more popular for downloading.
Of odd note: somebody wrote in that they get their comic scans from CD Roms. There are legal ones for sale, but there are also illegal ones on ebay, which of the two the person was getting they didn't say.
2. How old are the comics you download and roughly what percent fall into each category? |
0 to 25% | 26 to 50% | 50 to 75% | 75 to 100% | Total |
A) Less than 3 months old | 59 | 8 | 4 | 6 | 77 (13%) |
B) 3 Months to 1 Year old | 64 | 6 | 0 | 1 | 71 (12%) |
C) 1 Year to 5 Years old | 68 | 14 | 1 | 4 | 87 (14%) |
D) 1990's Comics | 64 | 24 | 1 | 1 | 90 (15%) |
E) 1980's Comics | 65 | 16 | 2 | 1 | 84 (14%) |
F) 1970's Comics | 59 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 67 (11%) |
G) 1960's Comics | 51 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 58 (10%) |
H) 1950's Comics | 37 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 38 (6%) |
I) 1930-1940's Comics | 27 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 32 (5%) |
Total | 494 (82%) | 87 (14%) | 8 (1%) | 15 (2%) | 604 |
These are the combined results. There are some very minor differences between how downloaders and scanners spread out their collection. You can read them here.
3. What type of comic books do you download? (Again, say Yes to all that apply). |
Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Superhero Comics from Marvel | 36 (19%) | 15 (20%) | 36 (19%) |
B) Superhero Comics from DC | 23 (21%) | 14 (19%) | 37 (20%) |
C) Non Superhero Comics from Marvel and DC (Vertigo, Trouble, etc..) |
18 (16%) | 12 (16%) | 30 (16%) |
D) Superhero Comics from Wildstorm, Image, Dark Horse, & Other publishers |
17 (15%) | 9 (12%) | 26 (14%) |
E) Non Superhero Comic Books from smaller publishers | 16 (14%) | 10 (14%) | 26 (14%) |
F) Manga | 7 (6%) | 4 (5%) | 11 (6%) |
G) European | 4 (4%) | 5 (7%) | 9 (5%) |
H) 1960s/1970s Underground comics | 6 (5%) | 5 (7%) | 11 (6%) |
Total | 112 | 74 | 186 |
Some stats I found particularly interesting was:
Superheroes: 53% | Non Superheroes: 47% |
Marvel & DC: 55% | Everybody else: 45% |
Most comic book stores are pretty slanted towards superheroes and Marvel and DC in particular. It appears that downloaders are using the free system to get comics they don't typically buy or see.
4. Do you download individual issues or Graphic Novels? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Individual Issues only. | 9 (20%) | 8 (27%) | 17 (23%) | B) I try to get complete runs of individual issues. | 21 (48%) | 12 (40%) | 33 (45%) |
C) I download Graphic Novels. | 14 (32%) | 10 (33%) | 24 (32%) |
Total | 44 | 30 | 74 |
5. What do you do with the scans that you downloaded? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Burn them to disk. | 7 (20%) | 8 (42%) | 15 (28%) |
B) Read them and delete them. | 9 (26%) | 1 (5%) | 10 (19%) |
C) Keep them on my Hard drive. | 17 (49%) | 9 (47%) | 26 (48%) |
D) Other (please specify) | 2 (6%) | 1 (5%) | 3 (6%) |
Total | 35 | 19 | 54 |
Written in answers:
All of the above, depends on the comics... Those i didn't like I'll delete, complete runs I'll burn.
Read them, then burn them to a CD, then i delete them.
Currently mostly on CDs, but that will change when I get a new computer with much larger space
Read then burn to disk
Keep them & maybe edit them with Photoshop @ a later date to improve quality
when i started i would burn them all, now i just read and delete
Read them and burn them to disk
Read and delete ones I don't own, Burn off ones I own so I don't have to dig out the issues
5a. Roughly how many of the comic books you download do you read? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) 0-5% | 3 (4%) | 2 (6%) | 5 (5%) |
B) 5-10% | 4 (5%) | 2 (6%) | 6 (6%) |
C) 10-20% | 3 (4%) | 5 (16%) | 8 (8%) |
D) 20-50% | 14 (19%) | 6 (19%) | 20 (19%) |
E) 50-80% | 17 (23%) | 8 (26%) | 25 (24%) |
F) 80-100% | 33 (45%) | 8 (26%) | 41 (39%) |
Total | 74 | 31 | 105 |
Scanners don't read as many of the comics as they download. Perhaps because they're reading the comics they scan?
6. Do you download comics/TPBs that you are currently buying? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
Yes | 38 (48%) | 22 (63%) | 60 (52%) |
No | 42 (53%) | 13 (37%) | 55 (48%) |
Total | 80 | 35 | 115 |
Interesting that the majority of scanners still buy what they're downloading, while a narrow margin of downloaders don't.
7. Have you ever bought a comic book or Graphic Novel because of something you downloaded? (Again, say yes to all that apply) |
Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) A comic book | 9 (20%) | 9 (27%) | 18 (23%) |
B) Comic book run (3 issues+) | 15 (33%) | 7 (21%) | 22 (28%) |
C) A TPB | 15 (33%) | 11 (33%) | 26 (33%) |
D) I never bought anything I downloaded | 7 (15%) | 6 (18%) | 13 (16%) |
Total | 46 | 33 | 79 |
Downloaders appear to pick up more series, vs. scanners that don't buy anything.
Downloaders | Scanners | Total | |
7a: If so, how many comics approximately? | 1761 | 1101 | 2862 | 7b: How many TPBs? | 345 | 154 | 499 |
Note: For this question I chose the most conservative number. If somebody said 20-30, I used 20. So the numbers you see here are minimums and are possibly higher.
Also Note: Some people wrote in word responses instead of numbers, they couldn't be accurately included with the tally.
For Comics responses were: Thousands, Everything I loved
For TPBs: Hundreds, Loads, a lot
8. Where did you buy the comic(s)/TPB(s)? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Local Comic Shop | 17 (37%) | 10 (45%) | 27 (40%) | B) Book store | 10 (22%) | 2 (9%) | 12 (18%) |
C) Online Mail Order | 10 (22%) | 3 (14%) | 13 (19%) |
D) Auction Site | 5 (11%) | 3 (14%) | 8 (12%) |
E) Newsstand | 2 (4%) | 2 (9%) | 4 (6%) |
F) Other (please specify) | 2 (4%) | 2 (9%) | 4 (6%) |
Total | 46 | 22 | 68 |
Others include: convention, my own comic shop that I started because of downloading, Ebay, Swap with other collectors, I don't buy comics anymore (scanning has nothing to do with this, I haven't bought them in about 5 years because of money issues), Comicons.
9. Have you dropped any subscriptions to comic books because you are reading them online? |
Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
Yes | 10 (12%) | 1 (3%) | 11 (9%) |
No | 74 (88%) | 33 (97%) | 107 (91%) |
Total | 84 | 34 | 118 |
Scanners remain remarkably loyal to the books they're buying. But that could be because they intend to scan them.
Downloaders | Scanners | Total | |
9a. If so, how many titles? | 14 | 1 | 15 |
10. Have you ever decided to not buy a TPB because you could download it? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
Yes | 8 (10%) | 9 (26%) | 17 (15%) |
No | 70 (90%) | 26 (74%) | 96 (85%) |
Total | 78 | 35 | 113 |
Downloaders | Scanners | Total | |
10b. Roughly how many TPBs did you skip on buying? | 114 | 84 | 198 |
11. When did you start downloading Comic Books? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Under 6 Months ago | 26 (33%) | 8 (22%) | 34 (29%) |
B) Under a Year Ago | 26 (33%) | 5 (14%) | 31 (27%) |
C) Under 2 years | 18 (23%) | 9 (24%) | 27 (23%) |
D) Under 4 years | 6 (8%) | 6 (16%) | 12 (10%) |
E) Longer than 4 years | 3 (4%) | 9 (24%) | 12 (10%) |
Total | 79 | 37 | 116 |
A group of scanners seemed to have started this, and every two years a new batch of scanners join the fray.
12. How many comic books have you downloaded? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) A Few | 3 (4%) | 1 (3%) | 4 (3%) |
B) Under 20 | 1 (1%) | 1 (3%) | 2 (2%) |
C) Under 100 | 5 (6%) | 0 (0%) | 5 (4%) |
D) Between 100 - 200 | 6 (8%) | 2 (5%) | 8 (7%) |
E) Under 2 Burned CD worth. | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
F) 2-10 Burned CD's worth | 11 (14%) | 3 (8%) | 14 (12%) |
G) 10-20 Burned CD's worth | 12 (15%) | 2 (5%) | 14 (12%) |
H) 20-100 Burned CD's worth | 15 (19%) | 10 (27%) | 25 (22%) |
I) 100-250 Burned CD's worth | 5 (6%) | 3 (8%) | 8 (7%) |
J) 250-500 Burned CD's worth | 2 (3%) | 3 (8%) | 5 (4%) |
K) 500+ | 7 (9%) | 5 (14%) | 12 (10%) |
Or: | |||
A) 1 Full Burned DVDs worth | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
B) 2-5 Burned DVDs worth | 1 (1%) | 4 (11%) | 5 (4%) |
C) 5-10 Burned DVDs worth | 5 (6%) | 1 (3%) | 6 (5%) |
D) 10+ Burned DVDs worth | 6 (8%) | 2 (5%) | 8 (7%) |
Total | 79 | 37 | 116 |
13. Roughly what percentage of these would be the illegal scanned types? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) 0-10% | 2 (3%) | 1 (3%) | 3 (3%) | B) 10-25% | 1 (1%) | 2 (6%) | 3 (3%) |
C) 25-50% | 0 (0%) | 2 (6%) | 2 (2%) |
D) 50-75% | 5 (7%) | 4 (11%) | 9 (8%) |
E) 75-90% | 7 (9%) | 2 (6%) | 9 (8%) |
F) 90-100% | 59 (80%) | 25 (69%) | 84 (76%) |
Total | 74 | 36 | 110 |
14. Where did you learn about downloading Comic Books? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) Message Board | 6 (21%) | 6 (30%) | 12 (24%) |
B) Search Engine | 7 (24%) | 1 (5%) | 8 (16%) |
C) Word of Mouth | 5 (17%) | 3 (15%) | 8 (16%) |
D) A News column/website | 2 (7%) | 1 (5%) | 3 (6%) |
E) Online Chat | 0 (0%) | 5 (25%) | 5 (10%) |
F) Other (please specify) | 9 (31%) | 4 (20%) | 13 (27%) |
Total | 29 | 20 | 49 |
Other answers included: found the newsgroup by browsing (5), Newsgroups (2), SuprNova (3), IRC user (2), accidentally found them on emule, downloading site, randomly saw it, Random Kazaa search, Found it on a website, I just thought to, By downloading other material, a bittorrent site, Live Journal, just saw they were available on BitTorrent sites, andy diggle message board, purely by accident (long story) I was looking for comicbook covers!!!!, Stumbled upon the NNTP Groups and found out about bittorrent.
What Age group are you in? | Downloaders | Scanners | Total |
A) 5-10 Years old | 1 (1%) | 0 (0%) | 1 (1%) |
B) 10-15 | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) |
C) 15-20 | 17 (21%) | 3 (8%) | 20 (17%) |
D) 20-25 | 28 (35%) | 11 (30%) | 39 (33%) |
E) 25-30 | 15 (19%) | 9 (24%) | 24 (21%) |
F) 30-35 | 11 (14%) | 4 (11%) | 15 (13%) |
G) 35-40 | 5 (6%) | 4 (11%) | 9 (8%) |
H) 40-45 | 2 (3%) | 1 (3%) | 3 (3%) |
I) 45-50 | 1 (1%) | 2 (5%) | 3 (3%) |
J) 50-55 | 0 (0%) | 2 (5%) | 2 (2%) |
K) 55+ | 0 (0%) | 1 (3%) | 1 (1%) |
Total | 80 | 37 | 117 |
The above question was asked twice, within the scanners only section and downloaders only section. I've combined the results for easy comparison.
These are the Scanners only questions. The 1st question was "1. Have you ever Scanned a Comic Book
or TPB?"
We got 37 people saying yes.
2. What Age of comic books do you scan, and roughly by what percentage? (Say Yes to all that apply) |
0 to 25 | 26 to 50 | 50 to 75 | 75 to 100 | Total | No Percent |
A) Under 3 months old | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 (8%) | 4 |
B) Comics between 3 months and 1 Year old | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 (8%) | 2 |
C) Comics between 1 and 5 years old | 3 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 4 (11%) | 3 |
D) 1990s Comics | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 10 (27%) | 4 |
E) 1980s Comics | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 (5%) | 5 |
F) 1970s Comics | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 5 (14%) | 2 |
G) 1960s Comics | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 (11%) | 2 |
H) 1950s Comics | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 (11%) | 0 |
I) 1930's - 1940s Comics | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 (5%) | 1 |
Total | 29 (78%) | 3 (8%) | 2 (5%) | 3 (8%) | 37 | 23 |
No Percent means people that indicated what they scanned, without giving a percentage. In D, they would just type D and nothing more.
3. What age of TPBs do you scan, and roughly by what percentage? (Again, say Yes to all that apply) |
Amount |
A) Under 3 months old | 1 (8%) |
B) Between 3 months and 1 Year old | 1 (8%) |
C) Between 1 and 5 years old | 3 (23%) |
D) 1990s TPBs | 4 (31%) |
E) 1980s TPBs | 3 (23%) |
F) 1970s TPBs | 1 (8%) |
Total | 13 |
4. Do you tend to devote yourself to a specific publisher? | Amount |
Yes | 5 (14%) |
No | 31 (86%) |
Total | 36 |
4a. If Yes, which one?
Marvel (2) Dark Horse, DC, Dell
5. Do you tend to devote yourself to a specific Genre (Superheroes, Underground, etc.)? | Amount |
Yes | 11 (31%) |
No | 25 (69%) |
Total | 36 |
5a. If yes, which one?
6 Superheroes, 1 Starwars, 1 Underground books, 1 rare underground or 80s/90s hard-to find superheroes,
1 Comedy, 1 Superheroes / Fantasy.
6. Why do you scan comic books? | Amount |
A) To help complete Runs | 7 (29%) |
B) To Share the Comics I love | 8 (33%) |
C) So I will have an digital archive of my collection | 6 (25%) |
D) Other: | 3 (13%) |
Total | 24 |
Other answers were:
give back a little (when i can) to the community, I find it a very
relaxing hobby, So that guys can read and sample comics they may otherwise never have heard of
or can not access anymore.
7. If a publisher or creator specifically said they didn't want their books scanned, would you stop scanning them? |
Publisher | Creator |
Yes | 12 (34%) | 23 (68%) |
No | 23 (66%) | 11 (32%) |
Total | 35 | 34 |
The majority appears to respect creators more than they do publishers.
The Following Question Has Been Removed:
8. Do you think scanning comic books will harm the comic book industry?
I asked this and later on realized my HTML code was wrong, as it didn't matter what people clicked, I was getting Yes as a response.
9. Have you ever bought comic books in order to scan them? | Amount |
Yes | 19 (53%) |
No | 17 (47%) |
Total | 36 |
9a. If so, how many? | Amount |
A) 1-5 | 4 (21%) |
B) 5-10 | 3 (16%) |
C) 10-20 | 3 (16%) |
D) 20-50 | 3 (16%) |
E) more than 50 | 0 (0%) |
F) More than 100 | 1 (5%) |
G) More than 200 | 5 (26%) |
Total | 19 |
10. What type of comic books did you buy to scan, and roughly how many from each age group? |
0 to 25 | 26 to 50 | 51 to 75 | 76 to 100 | Total | No Percent |
A) Books under 1 year old | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 (15%) | 2 |
B) Books under 4 years old | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 (15%) | 2 |
C) 1990 Books | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 8 (31%) | 1 |
D) 1980 Books | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 5 (19%) | 3 |
E) 1970 Books | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 (4%) | 3 |
F) 1960 Books | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 2 (8%) | 3 |
G) 1950 Books | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0%) | 3 |
H) 1940 Books | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 (4%) | 0 |
I) 1930 books | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 (4%) | 0 |
Total | 15 (58%) | 5 (19%) | 2 (8%) | 4 (15%) | 26 | 17 |
Again, No Percent are people that indicated what they scanned without a percentage.
11. Where do you buy them and by roughly what percentage did you buy them there? |
0 to 25 | 26 to 50 | 51 to 75 | 76 to 100 | Total | No Percent |
A) Local Comic Shop | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 5 (36%) | 9 |
B) Book store | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 (14%) | 2 |
C) Online Mail Order | 1 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 6 (43%) | 4 |
D) Auction Site | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 (7%) | 3 |
E) Newsstand | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0%) | 2 |
F) Other | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 (0%) | 3 |
Total | 5 (36%) | 0 (0%) | 0 (0%) | 9 (64%) | 14 | 23 |
Again, No Percent means they didn't indicate a percentage.
One question I wish I had asked was their country of origin. While I suspect most scanners live in USA/Canada, I'm did get e-mails from people saying they download because the US monthly comics don't come to their country, or it comes in some form they don't like. It's possible a significant number of downloaders are from outside USA/Canada.
That is the end of the Survey Results. Thank you and Good day.